Well, we didn’t go waltzing off to Ikea this morning – or this afternoon, either! Partly due to procrastination on my part, and partly due to the rather large work-load that Julian has at the moment. I dunno, I thought that resigning from the ruddy Body Corporate committee over at Doncaster was going to give him a lot more free time, but… he’s still flat-out in the Office! Actually, there’s a lot of paperwork and “official” stuff that has to be gone through when you’re moving, from organising the re-direction of mail to getting a locksmith in to change all the locks (just in case friends of the last owners had a key, or the real estate agents still had a key, or whatever – it’s far better to be safe than sorry!) So that’s largely what he’s been up to. We have to go about finding a gardening/lawnmowing person and a cleaner – I know that E., our cleaning lady from Doncaster, would happily make the long trek from Upwey to clean for us, but it’s a long way to come by public transport (which hasn’t really been all that… reliable? lately!) and her arthritis is almost as bad as mine… It would be good if she could come and visit occasionally though – she’s a lovely person, and a real “live wire”! 🙂 So while Julian was slaving over a hot desk in the office, I was slaving equally as hard over a hot Guild Bank on Laethys! Playing Rift for most of the day yesterday, it was really drummed into us that the Guild Bank on Laethys was in a parlous state and in really desperate need of cleaning up and clearing out! The Guild Bank itself was chock-a-block with a lot of pretty useless stuff, and Azsharah, my “Bank Manager and Auction Creator” character, had bags overflowing with old items to be auctioned off, and no room to put any new things coming through… so I decided to do a clean sweep – get rid of all the old stuff, don’t wait to try to auction it, just Vendor it all and be done with it! (Vendoring something means that you sell it to a “merchant” at the item’s “base” or minimum price – you can usually get about three to four times as much by auctioning the item… but it takes time, which I couldn’t be bothered doing – lazy me! 🙂 ) Then I needed to get the biggest bags that I could, so I bought nine of them to replace my slightly smaller ones (which I then sold!) and I was ready to start. Azsharah is not only the Bank Manager and the Auction Creator, she’s also the Guild Bank Overflow Mistress – that is, she takes care of all the Crafting items that won’t fit into the Guild Bank, but which we need to keep, like materials with which to make bags, clothing, weapons, potions, etc., etc… I usually pass low level materials on to her for storage in her own personal Bank, and only leave the higher level materials in the Guild Bank itself, but character levels change, and their needs change with them, so about every six months or so the whole lot has to be gone through, sold off, neatened up, and made useful and usable again, and that’s what I did this morning! I have got a few things on the Auction House, and I sent a few things off to different characters to either break down into more usable materials, or to be used as upgrades if feasible (or Vendored, if not!)

I have to tell you all that Flipper was a very naughty girl last night! She got us both very concerned… It all started when Julian was getting her dinner ready – she snuck up quietly behind him and he almost stepped on her! She got a fright and decided to chuck a fit of the vapours, then demanded petting and comforting and coddling – which she got, but not for as long as she wanted! Her dinner was duly prepared and she was escorted into the Library, where she has her dinner (mainly because it’s just off the kitchen!) We shut her in with her dinner because she sometimes forgets that it’s there and she wanders off to do something else – like sleep, or demand pats! Anyway, we followed the normal routine, and we let her out after the usual twenty minutes… and she hadn’t touched her dinner! Now I might mention at this point that she has quite a few medications ground up and mixed in with her dinner – blood pressure medication, some medication to ease her arthritis, and a rather large potassium tablet – so it’s important that she eats her dinner so that she gets the right amount of medicine at the right time. She usually loves it, so not eating her dinner isn’t due to the fact that it’s got all that medication mixed in with it! Anyway, she hadn’t touched her dinner, but she kept going and sitting in front of Julian and looking at him expectantly – just the way she does when she wants him to get her dinner ready! He took her into the Library several times to show her her dinner, but no… she wasn’t interested! She just looked at it, and turned around and walked away – then went and sat in front of Julian again, still looking expectant! By the time we went to bed last night she still hadn’t touched her dinner. We were starting to get worried! This morning when we got up, she came in to say “good morning”, as she usually does, and seemed quite her normal, usual self. Overnight, she’d not only polished her dinner bowl, but she’d also eaten about a quarter of her bowl of pussy-biscuits, leaving a mess of crumbs and half chewed bits all over the carpet around it! So much for all our worry…

Weigh-in this morning. I don’t know – perhaps when I get to the .3kg to .5kg part of a kilogram zone I should stop weighing myself for about a week, or at least until my weight makes up its mind what it’s going to do! Because it just goes silly! Meandering up and down, backwards and forwards – it just can’t seem to make up its mind whether it should be going up or going down, or something completely different! F’rinstance – the day before the day before yesterday, I was 76.4kg. Then I went up to 76.5kg… Yesterday I went back down to 76.4kg again… and this morning? I’m back up to ruddy 76.5kg again! *Arrggghhh!* I suppose I should be used to it by now, but it just makes me want to scream with frustration! And tomorrow I start back on those new pills which I don’t like any more than I liked the other ones! And this time I’ll start taking the two anti-fluid tablets from day one, instead of waiting to see if I do need to take two of them first! Grrr!

Anyway, tomorrow my favourite eldest daughter is coming over – she’s got a visit to the hairdresser, and we have a bit of shopping to do over at Doncaster, plus the bits of my chair to reclaim, and some Dry Cleaning to pick up. Then we’ll come back here and watch something (I can’t remember what we were watching last time! Hopefully Lee will be able to remember!) Bother! We go to “Daisy Dry Cleaning” over at Doncaster because they use water (H2O) and not chemicals, so if a piece of clothing says “Do Not Dry Clean” I know that we can have it Dry Cleaned at Daisy because they don’t use the chemicals that you’re not supposed to use on those sorts of things. Anyway, I was hoping that there might have been another one slightly closer, but there isn’t. There are only three “Daisy” Dry Cleaners in Melbourne – Port Melbourne, Clayton, and Doncaster. There’s one at Lara, too, but that’s a bit too far out… So the Doncaster Daisy will have to remain our Dry Cleaner of choice! Not that I mind too much – they’re nice people there, and they look after us well (besides, we’re beginning to think that we’re funding their new Rolls Royce and their all-expenses-paid trip around the world! ) Julian heard from Mr. Treadmill person this afternoon – subject to confirmation, he should be delivering the beastie around 9.00am tomorrow! I shall be able to do some exercise for a change! 🙂 And now, once again, that’s about it from me for tonight! 🙂 I’ll let you all know tomorrow night if the Treadmill arrived, and if I’ve tried it out (or if I fell off it and ended up in a heap on the floor behind it! 😉 ) and if my weight has decided which way it’s going to go, or if it’s still trying to make up its mind. You’ll find out what my favourite eldest daughter and I watched in the afternoon, and what our plans are for Wednesday. There’ll probably be other news that may be of interest, but rest assured that you won’t miss out – you’ll hear all about everything tomorrow night! 🙂 Until then, though, do try to bee good, remember that every somebody was once a nobody who wanted to and did, and don’t forget to keep warm, to drive carefully, and to look after yourselves… but above all, don’t forget to stay safe! 🙂 ciao, all! 🙂